The Hero Who Was
by FairyLights101
Summary: There's a constant rhythm in his head. Images always flashing, but it's impossible to tell what's real, what's not, what was. Someone talks to him, a gray-toned, red-eyed replica of him that no one can see. Nothing is real. Except for her. Nothing is real except for Zelda. But she doesn't remember either.


**TW for self harm and mental disorders.**

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><p>Knuckles on his forehead, Eyes wide open, focused on the gray-flecks on the white tiles beneath bare feet. They had warmed slightly, no longer as cold. "Damn. You just gonna stare at the floor all day?" The voice was a copy of his own, but carried a slightly deeper, darker timbre. He knew who it was. The Dark side of him.<p>

"Go away."

"Nah, I don't think I will. You amuse me." A pale gray foot settled next to his, toes pointing to him. "I'll never go away. We're butt buddies forever. You, me, and your pretty little nurse."

Link shot up, a fierce snarl twisting his face as he shoved his Darkness down onto the bed. "Shut up! Don't you dare talk about her!"

Ruby red eyes burned with devilish amusement as Dark grinned back up at him, gray lips twitching up over his white teeth. He was completely oblivious to the hands digging into his shoulders, the knees by his hips, pressing him into the thin mattress on a creaky metal frame. "I'll do what I want, pretty boy."

Link shoved away from Dark, rage burning in his chest. He could feel those eyes boring into him with sick amusement as he started to pace the room. White, white, white. White walls. White floor. White ceiling. White sheets. Sterile, calm balm psalm palm. But it was his room. His cell. His hell. A place with no one to tell of the hell he saw as he slept inside his hell of a cell.

He couldn't get away from Dark, the gray-toned doppelgänger that shadowed him. Couldn't get away from the images and dreams and nightmares that plagued him at every chance. Of a giant bird plucking his sister up from their island to lock her up in a cage far away. His body tearing itself apart as it adopted a new form: that of a wolf with chains around his ankles. Killing monsters that threatened the realms he lived in from life to life. Saving the fairies, lost in the wind. Collecting masks, some of which made his body combust, stretching and pulling as he changed: Deku, Zora, Goron.

It hurt. Those memories? Dreams? Nightmares? Whatever they were, they hurt. Burned. Liquefied his mind in a bind when he couldn't find the kind of rind. And no one understood the things he spoke of, even though they were there in the dreams and reality.

He peered out the window, through the bars that crisscrossed the milky glass to see the class in the grass. No, not a class. The others in the mental hospital, outside under supervision. They were nutcases. _Does that make me a nutcase too? A nut in a rut but what shut the cut?_ It must with the clang clang clang that would bang in his head. Constant. Near constant.

_God, it hurts._

His fingers itched to hold. His wrists itched to spill. He wanted to see it. Needed to feel it. That twinge of skin. The cold on his arm. Needed something to ground pound mound sound bound. _STOP IT_. "You want it? That feeling?"

Link turned away from the window, toward Dark. "I…"

Dark's gray lips curled up in a sinister smile of satisfaction as his fingers opened up, a small sliver of silver resting on his palm. His ruby eyes were like bloody stars as they urged him on. "Come on."

The blonde drifted over, picked it up. Sank to the ground in the corner of the room, eyes wide, face blank. He pressed the blade to his arm, where countless other cuts littered the skin. Some fresh some old cold mold told. _Stop. Stop, stop, stop._

He dug the blade into his arm, bringing a fresh wave of Dark's eyes to spread across his pale skin. _Where's the strength from the past lives?_ The blade dragged across his arm again, leaving another line. _I'm supposed to be rescuing the Princess, not sitting in here, rotting._

Another long, deep cut. More ruby eyes as everything collided in his mind. Reality, memory, dream - it all blurred together. _Battling thousands of monsters across dozens of lives, beating them back until they disappeared from the face of Earth. Leaving our world safe._

Fourth cut. _Raised by fairies and elves. Player of the Ocarina of Time. Son of the Deku Tree. Defender of Hyrule. Friend to Zora. Goron. Deku. Ruto. Woodfall Temple. Clock Town. Kokiri Forest. Eopona. Sheik. Navi. Gannondorg. Din. Mount Cucco. Tetra. The Tower of the Gods. Ordon Village. Fi. Lorule. Ampilus. Bulbo. Goblin. Moblin. Dark Bat. Ghosts. Gold Skulltula. Fire Baba. Zelda._

"Link? Link! Can you hear me? Link, can you open your eyes for me? Please." Cerulean orbs fluttered open, the world painstakingly focusing above him. Long, golden hair drifted into his face, brushed his cheeks. A soft but thin face, angelic in nature. A Cupid's bow mouth, a pretty, pale pink. Bright blue eyes, the blue of the skies that they had once ridden through, borne upon the wings of Loftwings. White nurse outfit.

Dozens that looked just like her stood over her shoulders, gazing down at him with gentle blue eyes. Those were the only things that never, ever changed. For a second he could see them all, Zelda from every lifetime they'd ever lived together. But they disappeared all too soon, leaving him with the newest Zelda. His nurse. _His Princess_. "Oh thank God, you're awake finally." She flung her arms around his neck, the sweet scent of honeysuckle rolling off her.

A bright grin lit Link's face up as she pulled away. "Zelda."

Teary blue eyes gazed into his, warm and inviting despite the distress, the anger. "_Idiot_. Don't look at me and smile after that stunt you pulled!"

Link blinked at her, still grinning like a fool. "After what?" Zelda squeezed his shoulder before she pulled her hand away. The smile almost faded until she took his hand into hers. She slowly turned his arm over, exposing the jagged lines, the specks of dried blood that spotted his arms. "Oh."

Somehow he'd forgotten. Caught up in the afterimages of the woman he'd pledged to save so many eons ago. He'd lost count of the years. But not the lives. It all came out in his scars. The ones he'd done in the daze haze maze craze faze rays.

"Why?" Zelda whispered, bringing him back to reality. To her. To the newest life that kept crumbling in a daze of insanity. She pulled some bandages from a kit on the bedside table. Gentle fingers brushed over his numb arm as she began to slowly, carefully wrap it up. The silence she left as she did so made it clear that she expected a response.

"Everything… it's so different. The world makes sense and it doesn't. I fight monsters. Save people. Play instruments, ones to calm storms, pass time, or bring the sun. Rescue you too rue two do coo sue loo. Know can't I. No. Don't know. I don't know. Now."

His words were jumbled, clanging, rhythmic, nonsensical. Or at least that's how his sentence structure was. Sometimes. But she nodded along to some parts of it. She must have comprehension as emotions flared to life in her eyes. Joy. Sorrow. Fear. Lear, deer, here, dear, cheer. His eye twitched at the clang, the rhythm, but it faded after a moment, the anger at the clanging.

Things were fading - fast.

The blonde grabbed her wrist with gentle fingers, oh so careful about the way he moved, how he held her hand. She didn't move. Didn't flinch. Everyone else did. But never Zelda. Blue orbs collided, silence reigning for a moment as they gazed deep within each other, searching for answers they might never find.

"Do you know? Do you see it? Do you _remember_?"

Mournful sky blue eyes broke away from his, something else burning in their depths. "Link… I'm sorry but I don't."

Was she lying? No. Yes. No. Snow on low go so bro toe Joe Mo row. Clang clang clang. Bing Bang Bong what is _wrong_?

He released her, hand falling limp onto his chest. Dulled, cerulean orbs tracked Zelda's hands as she finished wrapping his arm up. But none of it made sense. He was gone, gone, gone. Lost in his memories.

She'd done that once, bandaging his arm. When he'd fallen on some rocks in Skyloft and torn his arm open. After he'd defeated or been beaten Ganon or Ganondorf across multiple lifetimes. _If_ he survived the battle. After Hyrule had flooded and disappeared beneath the ocean, leaving the Red King and Ganondorf to rest in a watery grave. Skull Kid. Zant. He was a Hero. Zero. Nero. Tier though. Hero.

_How can I be a hero when my mind is cracked?_

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><p>Zelda watched Link fade from their world as he began lose his grip on reality once more. Every time she watched his bright eyes dull, her heart broke a little more. The endless cycle of death and rebirth put a strain on them when they remembered. Gave them relief when they didn't.<p>

She didn't want to lie. She _hated_ lying to Link. To her Hero. But it was necessary. The memories had caught up to him and cracked his mind. After so many eons of strength, he'd been broken beneath the memories of his burdens, of the things he'd done. He'd saved the land of Hyrule countless times. He'd saved _her_ far more.

And she could never give him enough in return for that. She couldn't restore his mind, put those fragments back together to form the picture. He was too far gone in this life for that. Schizophrenia ran rampant in his mind, distorting everything he saw, heard, and thought. Making the pieces fit and then fall apart. Letting memories bleed into reality uncontrollably. It was something that even modern medicines could not correct.

As the monsters died out, humans advanced. Humans forgot. The name of Hyrule ceased to fall from their lips. They forgot the legends. The First Hero. How many times the world had nearly fallen into ruin, only to be protected by a single boy or man in green wielding a sword, a shield, and a piece of the Triforce.

They'd forgotten about _Link_.

Without beasts to kill, a princess to save, or simply a purpose, Link had fallen apart a little more with every lifetime. "How many more do you have to endure?" she murmured as she turned his arm back over and ran her finger over the fresh bandages.

Each new, ugly scar was a new knife in her heart. But she knew what they did for him. They grounded him. Reminders of the wounds he once bore as he battled the beasts plaguing Hyrule. Zelda lifted his hand and pressed her lips to his knuckles.

"The world doesn't need a Hero anymore… but Link, I need you. Maybe in the next life…"

Maybe in the next life the gods would grant them a reprieve. Perhaps they would finally live a life of peace, without the chaos of a mental disorder to disrupt it all. Until then, he'd ask her every week: "Do you remember?" And every week she'd shake her head, trying not to cry as she whispered: "No. I'm sorry." Confirming that she remembered, that everything he saw was real would only shatter him.

Once had been enough for him.

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><p><strong>Sorry for the delay! Things were a wee bit hectic! Many thanks to my new beta, Blackmass, for editing this!<strong>

**Look forward to more works concerning Eruri, as well as a requested Ereri, a Soul Eater fic, and a Percy Jackson and the Olympians fic. The latter of the two will come out later. Much later.**

**This can be found on as well. My tumblr is fairylights101 (though it's pretty damn boring). Love you all! Have a wonderful day/night/existence!**


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